Fox News host Bret Baier was truly desperate to pacify then-President Donald Trump on election night after Fox called Arizona for Joe Biden, according to a new book by New Yorker journalist Susan Glasser and New York Times reporter Peter Baker.
“Fuck his feelings.” Am I doing this right?
Sometimes Bret is called one of Fox’s “real” journalists. He’s not.
No guts, no glory.
"Fox News: Unfair, Unbalanced, Unhinged, Unpatriotic, UnConstitutional, Unclean, Unctuous, UnAmerican, Undisciplined, Unlawful."
“Even if this gives us major egg?” What the hell is that supposed to mean? He might distance himself from hannity but seems to have moved closer to steve doocy.
Newscasters… Right?
Honestly, TFG is the BIGGEST whiny-ass titty baby out there! This is just further evidence that FoxNotNews IS NOT A NEWS NETWORK. I long for the day I can go a la carte on my cable and REMOVE FOX. I am TIRED of financing them.
Fox . . . did not take Baier’s suggestion to literally make stuff up about the election results.
An indiscretion that Fox has atoned for with its endless coverage of the big lie and mythical election fraud.
As do I since cable fees support it regardless of whether I watch it or not but, in the meantime, I can and do protest those fees FWIW; e.g., https://unfoxmycablebox.com/
Lest we forget. Just days before the election in 2016 Brett Baer had inside information from the FBI that Clinton was just about to be arrested. And Trump went to town on it during his campaign rallies. We still don’t know who these FBI sources were.
I will always wonder why FOX did what it did in regard to calling Arizona for Biden so early thereby undercutting any argument Trump could make ahead of final results that he had won the election.
This is especially puzzling when comparing FOX’s call of Arizona with how afraid the rest of the news media was of Trump, as Joe Scarborough pointed out in the days to follow, that it waited for hours and even days after it was obvious Biden would win certain states to call those states. For example it took several hours after the Wisconsin’s Secretary of State went on the air to say 100% of votes had been counted and here are the final results before the news media finally called Wisconsin.
Contrast that to Fox and its early call of Arizona for Biden. I was watching FOX news when the call was made to give Biden Arizona and am still puzzled as to why FOX did it.
At the time of the call Trump was leading in several key states. Brit Hume and others were starting to gloat about a Trump victory. Hume was giving a detailed account how Trump now had all these paths to victory and Biden very little. Just before it started to get real serous someone who I do not remember cut in and announced FOX was calling Arizona for Biden.
Hume literally turned White and swallowed hard and said, “this changes everything”.
My pure speculation is that FOX feared its on the air personalities getting ahead of themselves and so to head that off made the call of Arizona for Biden. I am told today’s statisticians are so precised they can often tell by just certain precincts the results of entire election. So my guess is that all the news media pretty much knew earlier that in the end Trump was going to lose but let it play out for ratings or avoid insulting Trump viewers or Trump himself.
But FOX’s Arizona call seemed aimed at its on the air hacks, to keep them from going off the deep end and looking really stupid ahead of the final results. but again this is just a guess.
FOX’s call of Arizona for Biden kept Trump from declaring victory and what possessed them to do it, it had to be a decision at the highest level and few at FOX including Hume and Bret Baier likely have no clue as to why FOX did it.
I have long held the belief that Bret Baier and Chris Wallace have been given a free pass and have not been held accountable for their actions as part of the Fox machine.
The test for me is the “Red Mirage.” The “Red Mirage” was a term popularized by journalists - progressive and mainstream - doing their professional duty prior to the 2020 elections. There was an imbalance at the time, with Democrats favoring mail-in ballots, and Covid-denying Republicans favoring in-person voting.
Many States (for various reasons) were only going to start counting mail-in after the polls closed. That meant that the immediate results from in-person voting only would favor Republicans, creating a Red Mirage of Republican victory. After the initial results, slowly, Democratic mail-in votes would come in and even up or surpass the GOP.
It didn’t take a genius to conclude that a brazenly off-the-rails lying Trumpist Republican Party would probably use that pattern to undermine faith in the vote. Thus the prior warning about the “Red Mirage” to defuse that possibility. I don’t know if Baier or Wallace ever included this critical piece of news in their broadcasts, but I doubt it. Regardless, their failure to inform resulted in Trump world remaining ripe for the “big lie.” If these Fox “newscasters” had done a responsible job of journalism, that would have at least been lessened.
So Baier’s actions on Election Eve are hardly surprising to me.
Baier has two kids, but he’s afraid of someone else’s.
Good start. Now, work in the word “snowflake”, and try sneering a little bit more.
Yeah, and he was trying to cast that bit of news as far from himself as he could. Because otherwise, His Orangeness would yell at him some more.
Oh fuck me.
FoxNotNews’ on air hacks were already looking stupid by covering up for TFG’s many crimes. Calling Arizona for Biden DOES NOT ATONE for their many sins.
Presstitutes got to Presstitute!
I think this is one of those areas where we have to separate the on-air personalities from the people behind the scenes. The statisticians don’t necessarily care who wins or loses, they just want to get it right, and they weren’t going to back off their work just to make somebody feel better. I think that’s ultimately what it came down to.
Major Garrett was on Morning Joe this morning hawking his book called “The Big Truth: Upholding Truth in the Age of the Big Lie.” Although I appreciate him doing his part to expose the Big Lie, I also remember when he worked for Fox and all the ridiculous questions he would ask.
